Which product vertical is most commercially fruitful and has the most growth potential?
Growth of Inspired’s interactive businesses, Virtual Sports and iGaming, has been a big driver of our business in the last few years. Tey now represent more than 50 per cent of our company EBITDA and are growing significantly.
We had largely been a retail-based, server- based gaming machine business, and now our business is much more diversified from both a product and geography basis—yet our core strength and focus on content have remained steadfast and drive us every day.
Gaming, iGaming, iLottery and Virtual Sports position us very well for where we think the growth is going to be in the industry, and we plan to be at the forefront of innovation to help drive that for our customers.
How has the size of Inspired's digital business grown since the pandemic and has this necessitated a pivot in the company's direction and a tweaking of the content roadmap?
We never stopped developing products and enhancements to all our business units, but our online business, including Virtual Sports and iGaming, grew substantially during this period. When our retail business opened back up, we were able to launch a lot of new content to kick-start the return.
Our Gaming business returned to pre-COVID levels quickly, and amazingly, our online businesses continued to perform at elevated levels, turning a bad situation into a positive for Inspired and its customers. We are proud of the dedication and resilience of our team during a difficult time, but thankfully we have more than fully recovered from the impact of COVID and see lots of great opportunity in our business going forward.
Operationally, how do the divisions - Gaming, Virtuals, Interactive, and Leisure - work? Are they independent of one another and siloed with regards to game development and allocation of assets, or is there cross- collaboration between teams? For instance, does each product have specialist teams?
Inspired fosters cross-team collaboration while maintaining necessary job differentiation. While team members within different business units might not work together on a day-by-day basis, managers from our four business units— Gaming, Virtuals, Interactive and Leisure - work together for the business to achieve its aims and objectives.
We do see more overlap in our Gaming and Interactive teams to effectively support our omni-channel strategy. Ultimately, all divisions can be resources for each other, while focusing on their separate goals.
How are the platforms and design processes used in the creation of online and land-based games different? For example, do designers work across both land-based and online titles?
Inspired has an industry-leading portfolio of in-house produced gaming content. A selection
Brooks Pierce Chief Operating Officer and President, Inspired
often tends to be a seamless process. Te look and feel of the artwork are very similar, but re- formatted to ensure the artwork fits the required specs of the medium, whether it’s in relation to a mobile device or cabinet. A total rebuild of assets is not always necessary.
Our mobile games, suitable for omni-channel markets, are not only playable in landscape but are portrait-enabled too. Our games can therefore go from horizontal and vertical to land-based and back.
How do player expectations differ depending on the device they are playing on? Are players looking to play the same game on a desktop computer and mobile phone?
“Gaming, iGaming, iLottery and Virtual Sports position us very well for where we think the growth is going to be in the industry, and we plan to be at the forefront of innovation to help drive that for our customers.”
of those premium games forms part of our wider omni-channel strategy, which encompasses a diverse mix of premium titles servicing both online and land-based gaming outlets.
Te design processes can be flexible. We sometimes start the development process intending to create a game that will be played across multiple formats. For example, one of our most recent titles, Anubis Gold, was created to service our online outlets and for land-based gaming centres, from the outset. Big Fishing Fortune, however, was created first for online, and due to its popularity and success, we made a version for retail.
As players ourselves, our aim is to create games that people want to play. Te development processes tend to be a collaborative affair, involving several people with creative ideas and keen mathematical brains. Te addition of Astra and Bell-Fruit studios to Inspired’s growing development teams is forever bringing vibrancy and new ideas to our thriving portfolio of rich content.
How complicated is the transitioning of titles from land-based screens to the horizontal medium of mobile phones and tablets, and vice versa? How are the graphic assets managed? Is it a transition or do games undergo a total rebuild?
Inspired boasts a group of extremely talented developers who are both creative and mathematical in their thinking. Te majority tend to be located in the UK and therefore have the physical capability of brainstorming ideas together.
Te transition of assets for the various formats
Many players enjoy the fun and thrills of playing the same game across multiple formats, particularly when they are familiar with the theme and graphics as well as the mechanics of the game. Take our Centurion and Reel King games, for example. Both franchises did extremely well across land-based and online. In addition to boasting fun bonus mechanics, they are iconic brands, have recognisable characters and embody striking graphics.
We at Inspired invest time and resources into making sure our games used for omni-channel purposes encompass the same user experience and play parameters throughout, such as volatility and hit frequency. Players expect a seamless experience that considers their playing mode. Whether they are standing still or on the move, the gameplay needs to be flawless on whichever format they are playing on.
Te player journey and overall gaming experience are paramount to us. Our emphasis is placed on delivering a fun experience that is engaging, rewards players fairly, and is as seamless as possible. Business intelligence and data are important factors during the development process, to ensure we are making the right choices based on actual player insights.
How does Inspired assess the titles that will perform well across both land-based and digital, and which will only be successful in one or the other? Do you wait until a game proves itself in the land-based or mobile market before bringing it across or do you sometimes launch a title in both channels?
It depends. Sometimes we develop games with a particular format in mind, but once launched, insights show it has the X-factor. We then reformat it for either land-based or online and more often than not the game proves successful across all channels.
Occasionally, however, we develop a game that we set out to make for omni-channel purposes from the point of ideation. We have a game launching in the coming weeks, Call of the Wild, that we planned to launch across multiple formats form the outset.
Using our sound experience and years of development and player knowledge, we think it’ll do well across multiple formats. Drawing on player insights and concrete data analysis are key to our decision processes.
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